Hello. I’m new to this forum but would like to share this letter that I wrote to Brian Cox with questions nobody ever asks. I had no reply because nobody knows?

Is the Universe, as we know it the outcome of the big bang as thought? The Americans have in the past experimented in colliding Anti-matter and Matter which exploded and created in miniature ‘The big Bang’ and now some scientists are certain that that is the way everything was created... You at CERN believe the same. Now to hypothesize further...What if we are the end result of an experiment done by some far off intelligent beings? Did they perhaps cause anti-matter and matter to collide and create their big bang? And there being more matter than anti-matter to fight for existence, our universe was created. Our lives as we know it could quite as easily have evolved in that way. And, if the same experiment done recently in America and the one you are about to do, was left to expand for several billions of years then perhaps there would be a miniature universe inside the atom blaster...BUT! The big question’s that I have never heard anyone mention are; If the scenario of the big bang really did occur as is thought then logically it could happen time and time again, it could go on indefinitely. It is also quite feasible that there are parallel worlds out there. Life as we know it has to have a beginning and an end, so when a universe ends another must begin, but again there is another big question, how can anything go on forever? One school of thought is that everything; all that we know doesn’t really exist. We are all just imagination, but again, whose imagination? There has to be someone! Somewhere! And if as a lot of people think, God made man! Then who made God? Logically thinking, nothing makes any sense at all. At least not to our way of thinking as some might say, but then it doesn’t matter in what way or by whom the thought process is started, a thought is a thought and it has to start somewhere. It’s said that nothing is impossible so taking it a little further maybe our universe and we are just one of many universe’s in a big bottle? But again...Who‘s holding the bottle? It goes on and on and on and... Will we ever know the truth? Do you?Johnrox3

For starters, they're not questions that nobody ever asks - these are questions that have been asked by a lot of people throughout the history of our species. It's a mixture of scientific and philosophic enquiry, and while for most of it you're right - no-one knows (yet) - for some there are answers.

Re the question of infinite miniature universes, since as far as we've been able to ascertain particles only get so small or so big I think it unlikely that this is possible. Atoms are atoms, electrons and other particles are already known to be quantified - by what we know this universe is it. As for your someone or something has to have started it all rolling, why? Take the formation of a star for instance. You have dust, and gas and gravity. Forces and materials - gravity as a force acts on the dust and gas causing it to clump together, spin and heat up - repeat until mass is enough to kick start fusion and there you have a star. The process happens without any help as long as the conditions are there in the first place. Where everything came from and what caused the bang in the first place though you're right, nobody knows, but there will be an answer at some point even for that...if our race survives long enough to figure it out at least

For now you just have to accept that we don't have all the answers and that theories are just that until they're proven - until then they're subject to change as we try to make them fit the facts we discover. Perhaps one of the answers will be that things can just come into being without any particular cause after all. Until then all we can do is keep asking the questions and looking for answers. Oh, and like God (at least in his currently perceived religious role) truth is a human concept and is therefore subjective - what you really mean is simply answers to questions. What are the facts.

_________________"Floodlit in the hazy distanceThe star of this unearthly showVenting vapours, like the breathOf a sleeping white dragon"

Thanks for your response Black Arrow but you miss my point; you ask why does there have to be something to kick start an action, then you say No! it doesn't! your example ; a star starts from dust etc; Where do you think the dust comes from? There always has to be something there before anything else can begin to form. There is no such thing as Nothing! You may build rockets but you won't get far thinking like that?

Get far with regard to what? I'm neither a theoretical physicist nor a theologian - your questions have a heavy philosophical angle and obviously concern you a great deal. Me, I'm more concerned with the here and now: how we can move our species on into space in order to (1) utilise the resources available out there, (2) make sure we can survive in case of an extinction type event on Earth and (3) hopefully stop ravaging/polluting etc. our own planet and home by finding better ways to do things. Good luck in finding your answers though.

_________________"Floodlit in the hazy distanceThe star of this unearthly showVenting vapours, like the breathOf a sleeping white dragon"

John, I think you have misunderstood the popular reporting about those collider experiments. When a matter particle and an antimatter particle annihilate each other, their mass gets converted into energy. Add that to the very high kinetic energy those particles have in a supercollider, and you get a very large amount of energy in a really tiny volume, thus a very high energy density.

In the early stages of its existence, the universe was still small, and its energy was therefore concentrated in a small volume, leading to a similarly high energy density. However, that doesn't mean that those experiments really created a universe any more than building a wave pool creates an ocean. It's just a way for us to study those circumstances without having to travel back in time 13.7 billion years.

The final question you're asking is not one that science can answer. Science is about inventing hypotheses, putting them to the test, and connecting the ones that survive together into theories of how the universe works. Whether there are other universes that we cannot interact with, or whether there is a God whose presence we cannot measure, are not scientific questions, because no experiment could disprove them. So we're solidly in the realm of philosophy and theology, specifically teleology. We won't ever have an objective answer to those questions, although everyone can still have a subjective personal answer to them and perhaps that's good enough for you.

_________________Say, can you feel the thunder in the air? Just like the moment ’fore it hits – then it’s everywhereWhat is this spell we’re under, do you care? The might to rise above it is now within your sphereMachinae Supremacy – Sid Icarus

I'd like to thank you Lourens for pointing me to 'Russel's teapot' I too am now a fan of his analogy to the existence of God. You are probably correct in saying I misunderstood. I'm a 70 year old trying to understand but, I still disagree with 'Black Arrow' who said that a star can form from nothing! it only needs dust? That is the start and where did the dust come from? I will also repeat that there is no such thing as 'nothing'Thanks to you all I will continue to learn about life!

I'd like to thank you Lourens for pointing me to 'Russel's teapot' I too am now a fan of his analogy to the existence of God. You are probably correct in saying I misunderstood. I'm a 70 year old trying to understand but, I still disagree with 'Black Arrow' who said that a star can form from nothing! it only needs dust? That is the start and where did the dust come from? I will also repeat that there is no such thing as 'nothing'Thanks to you all I will continue to learn about life!

Star formation is fairly well understood I believe. Lots of gas and gravity are all you need.

Where the dust and gas came from? Well, mostly from the soup of particles that popped in to existence at the time of the big bang about 14B years ago. They have been through various star formations/destructions since then (we are made of 'stardust').

As to the BB itself? Well, that's a difficult one.

There's been some interesting information come back very recently on the BB, how long ago it was etc through work done by a microwave telescope who's name escapes me.

Big Bang theory and background radiation have always been fascinating areas of study to me. I was born and raised in a Christian family where science was held in very high regard. Both of my parents were (and are) lifelong learners and teachers who went out of their way to instill a passion for knowledge in their children. (My brother got most of it, btw).

Anyway, thanks for mentioning the Planck Telescope. I'd heard of it, but wasn't very familiar with it's mission, so I looked it up on Wikipedia and found this...

Attachment:

plnkv.jpg

Wikipedia wrote:

This graphic illustrates the evolution of satellites designed to measure ancient light leftover from the big bang that created our universe 13.8 billion years ago. Called the cosmic microwave background, this light reveals secrets of the universe's origins, fate, ingredients and more.

The three panels show 10-square-degree patches of all-sky maps created by space-based missions capable of detecting the cosmic microwave background. The first spacecraft, launched in 1989, is NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer, or COBE (left panel). Two of COBE's principal scientists earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006 for the mission's evidence supporting the big bang theory, and for its demonstration that tiny variations in the ancient light reveal information about the state of the universe.

These variations, called anistotropies, came into sharper focus with NASA's next-generation spacecraft, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, or WMAP (middle panel). This mission, launched in 2001, found strong evidence for inflation, the very early epoch in our universe when it expanded dramatically in size, and measured basic traits of our universe better than ever before.

The most advanced satellite yet of this type is Planck, a European Space Agency mission with significant NASA contributions. Planck, launched in 2009, images the sky with more than 2.5 times greater resolution than WMAP, revealing patterns in the ancient cosmic light as small as one-twelfth of a degree on the sky. Planck has created the sharpest all-sky map ever made of the universe's cosmic microwave background, precisely fine-tuning what we know about the universe.

Planck is a European Space Agency mission, with significant participation from NASA. NASA's Planck Project Office is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. JPL contributed mission-enabling technology for both of Planck's science instruments. European, Canadian and U.S. Planck scientists work together to analyze the Planck data.

Very cool.

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I have the suspicion that the more powerful our instruments get and the clearer our view of the distant universe gets, the more challenged our "standard model" of the Universe and its origins will become. The Big BanG Theory always seemed a bit too convenient to me.

But then I am a professional contrarian.

Last edited by JamesG on Sat Apr 06, 2013 9:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The Big Band Theory of the universe? Is that the one where Louis Armstrong landed on the Moon?

_________________Say, can you feel the thunder in the air? Just like the moment ’fore it hits – then it’s everywhereWhat is this spell we’re under, do you care? The might to rise above it is now within your sphereMachinae Supremacy – Sid Icarus

It may have been a misspelling, but it's still a pretty awesome vision for the origin of our universe.

You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post._________________The most promising new channel on YouTube: FargoFX(in my totally dispassionate and thoroughly objective opinion.)